"Clancy, Tom - Clear & Present Danger" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clancy Tom)

"Come on, Mr. Doe. You'd better see this." The lieutenant took him by the arm and led him forward. Just outside the wardroom door was a ladder that led upward. At the top of it was a narrow passageway, and both men headed aft toward the cutter's vacant helicopter deck.

The lieutenant's name was Rick Alison. A black kid from Albany, New York, and the ship's navigator, Alison thanked God every night for serving under Red Wegener, who was far and away the best commander he'd ever met. He'd thought about leaving the service more than once, but now planned on staying in as long as he could. He led Mr. Doe aft, about thirty feet from the festivities.

The seas were really rough now, Alison noted. He gauged the wind at over thirty knots, and the seas at twelve or fourteen feet. Panache was taking twenty-five-degree rolls left and right of the vertical, snapping back and forth like a kids' seesaw. Alison remembered that O'Neil had the conn, and hoped that Chief Owens was keeping an eye on the boy. The new ensign was a good enough kid, but he still had a lot to learn about ship handling, thought the navigator, who was a bare six years older himself. Lightning flashed occasionally to starboard, flash-lighting the sea. Rain was falling in solid sheets, the drops flying across the deck at a sharp angle and driven hard enough by the wind to sting the cheeks. All in all it was the sort of night to make Edgar Allan Poe salivate at its possibilities. There were no lights visible, though the cutter's white paint gave them a sort of ghostly outline as a visual reference. Alison wondered if Wegener had decided to do this because of the weather, or was it just a fortunate coincidence?

Captain, you've pulled some crazy shit since you came aboard, but this one really takes it.

There was the rope. Someone had snaked it over the end of the cutter's radio/radar mast. That must have been fun, Alison thought. Had to have been Chief Riley. Who else would be crazy enough to try?

Then the prisoner appeared. His hands were still behind his back. The captain and XO were there, too. Wegener was saying something official, but they couldn't hear it. The wind whistled across the deck, and through the mast structure with its many signal halyards - oh, that's what Riley did, Alison realized. He'd used a halyard as a messenger line to run the one-inch hemp through the block. Even Riley wasn't crazy enough to crawl the mast top in this weather.

Then some lights came on. They were the deck floods, used to help guide a helo in. They had the main effect of illuminating the rain, but did give a slightly clearer picture of what was happening. Wegener said one more thing to the prisoner, whose face was still set in an arrogant cast. He still didn't believe it, Alison thought, wondering if that would change. The captain shook his head and stepped back. Riley then placed the noose around his neck.

John Doe's expression changed at that. He still didn't believe it, but all of a sudden things were slightly more serious. Five people assembled on the running end of the line. Alison almost laughed. He'd known that was how it was done, but hadn't quite expected the skipper to go that far...

The final touch was the black hood. Riley turned the prisoner to face aft toward Alison and his friend - there was another reason, as well - before surprising him with it. And finally it got through to Mr. Doe.

'Noooooo!" The scream was perfect, a ghostly sort of cry that matched the weather and the wind better than anyone might have hoped. His knees buckled as expected, and the men on the running end of the line took the strain and ran aft. The prisoner's feet rose clear of the black no-skid deck as the body jerked skyward. The legs kicked a few times, then were still before the line was tied off on a stanchion.

"Well, that's that," Alison said. He took the other Mr. Doe by the arm and led him forward. "Now it's your turn, sport."

Lightning flashed close aboard just as they reached the door leading back into the superstructure. The prisoner stopped cold, looking up one last time. There was his companion, body limp, swinging like a pendulum below the yard, hanging there dead in the rain.

"You believe me now?" the navigator asked as he pulled him inside. Mr. Doe's trousers were already soaked from the falling rain, but they were wet for another reason as well.

The first order of business was to get dried off. When the court reconvened, everyone had changed to fresh clothing. James Doe was now in a set of blue Coast Guard coveralls. His handcuffs had been taken off and left off, and he found a hot cup of coffee waiting for him on the defense table. He failed to note that Chief Oreza was no longer at the head table, nor was Chief Riley in the wardroom at the moment. The entire atmosphere was more relaxed than it had been, but the prisoner scarcely noticed that. James Doe was anything but calm.

"Mr. Alison," the captain intoned, "I would suggest that you confer with your client."

"This, one's real simple, sport," Alison said. "You can talk or you can swing. The skipper doesn't give a shit one way or the other. For starters, what's your name?"

Jes·s started talking. One of the officers of the court picked up a portable TV camera - the same one used in the boarding, in fact - and they asked him to start again.

"Okay - do you understand that you are not required to say anything?" someone asked. The prisoner scarcely noticed, and the question was repeated.

"Yeah, right, I understand, okay?" he responded without turning his head. "Look, what do you want to know?"

The questions were already written down, of course. Alison, who was also the cutter's legal officer, ran down the list as slowly as he could, in front of the video camera. His main problem was in slowing the answers down enough to be intelligible. The questioning lasted forty minutes. The prisoner spoke rapidly, but matter-of-factly, and didn't notice the looks he was getting from the members of the court.

"Thank you for your cooperation," Wegener said when things were concluded. "We'll try to see that things go a little easier for you because of your cooperation. We won't be able to do much for your colleague, of course. You do understand that, don't you?"

"Too bad for him, I guess," the man answered, and everyone in the room breathed a little easier.

"We'll talk to the U.S. Attorney," the captain promised. "Lieutenant, you can return the prisoner to the brig."

"Aye aye, sir." Alison took the prisoner out of the room as the camera followed. On reaching the ladder to go below, however, the prisoner tripped. He didn't see the hand that caused it, and didn't have time to look, as another unseen hand crashed down on the back of his neck. Next Chief Riley broke the unconscious man's forearm, while Chief Oreza clamped a patch of ether-soaked gauze over his mouth. The two chiefs carried him to sick bay, where the cutter's medical corpsman splinted the arm. It was a simple green-stick fracture and required no special assistance. His undamaged arm was secured to the bunk in sick bay, and he was allowed to sleep there.

The prisoner slept late. Breakfast was brought in to him from the wardroom, and he was allowed to clean himself up before the helicopter arrived. Oreza came to collect him, leading him topside again, and aft to the helo deck, where he found Chief Riley, who was delivering the other prisoner to the helicopter. What James Doe - his real name had turned out to be Jes·s Castillo - found remarkable was the fact that John Doe - Ramєn Josщ Capati - was alive. A pair of DEA agents seated them as far apart as possible, and had instructions to keep the prisoners separate. One had confessed, the captain explained, and the other might not be overly pleased with that. Castillo couldn't take his eyes off Capati, and the amazement in his eyes looked enough like fear that the agents - who liked the idea of a confession in a capital case - resolved to keep the prisoners as far apart as circumstances allowed. Along with them went all the physical evidence and several videotape cassettes. Wegener watched the Coast Guard Dolphin helo power up, wondering how the people on the beach would react. The sober pause that always follows a slightly mad act had set in, but Wegener had anticipated that also. In fact, he figured that he'd anticipated everything. Only eight members of the crew knew what had taken place, and they knew what they were supposed to say. The executive officer appeared at Wegener's side.