"Murphy, Warren - [Destroyer 016] - Oil Slick" - читать интересную книгу автора (Destroyer)

"May Allah bless the revolution."

"May Allah bless his majesty."

"Use the Swiss banks. They're more experienced in these matters. And don't worry about the legend of my family crown."

"What legend?" asked the colonel.

"It is said that when my family ruled Baghdad ... I am not a Berber, as you know."

"That helped considerably with the revolution."

"When we had the caliphate of Baghdad ... this was way before that sergeant declared himself shah ... well, in any case, it is said that when an ambassador from an eastern country wished to present the most magnificent gift he could think of, he gave my ancestor-the caliph- a promise. This promise, he said, was worth more than gold, more than rubies, more than the finest silks from Cathay."

"Get to the point."

"I'm telling the story," said King Adras.

"I don't have all day."

"Well, to make a beautiful, long story short and ugly, what he gave was the promise of the services of the finest assassins in the world. He who takes the crown from the head of any of the descendants of the great caliph will reap a whirlwind from the east. But it will come from the west."

"Anything else?"

"No."

"Long live the revolution. Good-bye." And the young colonel hung up the phone and did not think about the fanciful tale, one more tool of reactionary forces, until he held the industrialized world by a ring through its nose. And the ring was what the Tyrannosaurus's body had become. Oil.

And at first, just like the Tyrannosaurus, Colonel Muammar Baraka was afraid of nothing.

CHAPTER TWO

His name was Remo and he was ready.

He did not have to be told he was ready, because if he had had to be told, then he would not have been ready. He could not feel he was ready because the knowledge was beyond feeling. It was a knowing so quiet, so beyond far and yet so close at the same time, that when it was there one knew it.

It came to him, not during nerve-chilling exercises and not during his balance tests as he hovered twenty stories above the street on a narrow hotel ledge. It came to him in his sleep hi a hotel room in Denver, Colorado. He opened his eyes and said:

"Wow. I'm ready."

He went into the bathroom and turned on the light. He looked at himself in the full-length mirror behind the door. It was more than a decade now since he had started, and if anything, he had lost ten or fifteen pounds since then. Thinner. Definitely thinner. But he still had the thick wrists. They had been nature's gift; everything else he had been taught.

He dressed. Black socks, tan slip-on shoes of Italian leather, gray slacks, and blue shut. He had dark eyes and high cheekbones, the flesh drawn taut under them. There
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hadn't been any more operations to change his face recently, and hi the last few years he had learned, if need be, to change it himself. It wasn't that hard, and anyone could do it. It was just a matter of tiny changes, muscle manipulations within the mouth, a tensing of the scalp around the hairline, a change hi the cast of the eyes. When most people tried it, they looked as though they were making a funny face, because they forgot and did one thing at a tune instead of making all the changes simultaneously.

The hotel hallway was silent when he slipped out, and Remo Williams did not bother to lock his room. What would anyone take, anyhow? Underwear? Slacks? So what? And if they should take money, so what again? What could he spend it on? He'd never be able to buy a home, at least not one to live in. A car? He could buy all the cars he wanted. So what?

Money was not a problem. He was told at the beginning that he would never have a money problem again. What they didn't tell him was that it wouldn't make any difference. It was as though someone were assured that he would be free from attack by flying saucers. Well now, isn't that nice?