"Lester Del Rey - Pursuit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Del Rey Lester)

A slim young man in gray tweeds leaped out of it and came to a stop. He threw back heavy black hair
with a toss of his head and ran into the crowd that parted to let him through. Someone began pointing
towards Hawkes.
Hawkes tried to slide around the corner without being seen, but a flashlight in the young man's hands
pinpointed him. A yell went up.
тАЬThere he goes!тАЭ
His feet sounded hopelessly on the sidewalk as he dashed up toward Broadway, but behind came the
sound of others in pursuit, and the shouting was becoming a meaningless babble as others took it up. There
was no longer any doubt. Someone was certainly after him - there'd been no time to turn in an alarm over the
fire in his apartment. They'd been coming for him before that started.
What hideous crime could he have committed during the period he couldn't remember? Or what spy-ring
had encircled him?
He had no time to think of the questions, even. He ducked into the thin swarm of a few people leaving a
theater just as the pursuing group rounded the corner, with the slim young man in the lead.
Their cries were enough. Hands reached for him from the theater crowd, and a foot stretched out to trip
him up. Terror lent speed to his legs, but he could never outdistance them, as long as others picked up the
chase.
A sudden blast of heat struck down, and the air was golden and hazy above him. He staggered sideways,
blinded by the glare. The crowd was screaming in fear now, no longer holding him back. He felt the edge of
a subway entrance. There was no other choice. He ducked down the steps, while his vision slowly returned,
and risked a glance back at the street - just as the whole entrance came down in a wreck of broken wood and
metal.
A clap of thundering noise sounded above him, drowning the hoarse screams of the people. The few
persons in the station rushed for the fallen entrance, to mill about it crazily, just as a train pulled in. Hawkes
started toward it, and then realized his pursuers would suspect that. Whatever frightful weapon had been
used against him had backfired on them - but they'd catch him at the next stop.


He found space at the end of the platform and dropped off, skirting behind the train, and avoiding the
high-voltage rails.
The uptown platform held only three people, and they seemed to be too busy at the other end, trying to see
the wreckage, to notice him. He vaulted onto it, and dashed into the men's room. The few contents of his
coat pocket came out quickly, and he began to stuff them into his trousers. He shoved the coat into a garbage
can, wet his hair and slicked it back, and opened his shirt collar. The change didn't make much of a disguise,
but they wouldn't be expecting him to show up so near where he entered.
His skin prickled as he came out, but he fought down the sickness in his stomach. A few drops of rain
were beginning to fall, and the crowd around the accident was thinning out. That might help him - or it
might prove more dangerous. He had to chance it.
He stopped to buy a paper, maintaining an air of casual interest in the crowd.
тАЬWhat happened?тАЭ he asked.
 The newsstand attendant jerked his eyes back from the excitement reluctantly. тАЬDamned if I know.
Someone says a ball lightning came down and broke over there. Caved in the entrance. Nobody's hurt
seriously, they say. I was just stacking up to go home when I heard it go off. Didn't see it. Just saw the
entrance falling in.тАЭ
Hawkes picked up his change and turned back across Broadway, pretending he was studying the paper.
The dateline showed it was July 10, just seven months from the beginning of his memory lapse. He couldn't
believe that there had been time enough for any group to invent a heat-ray, if such a thing could exist. Yet
nothing else would explain the two sudden bursts of flame he had seen. Even if it could be invented, it
would hardly be used in public for anything less than a National Emergency.
What had happened in the seven blanked-out months?