"Dibdin, Michael - Aurelio Zen 02 - Vendetta UC - part 09" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dibdin Michael)

repair which ran across the lower slopes of the valley,
crossing the railway line, before climbing the other side to
join the main coastal highway.
Some distance before the junction, a high wire-mesh
fence came down from the ridge to Zen's left to run
alongside the road. At regular intervals, large signs
warned 'Private Property -- Keep Out -- Electrified Fencing
-- Beware of the Lions'. The landscape was bare and
windswept, a desolate chaos of rock, scrub and stunted
~ees. After some time a surfaced driveway opened off the
road to the left, leading to a gate of solid steel set in the
wire-mesh fence.
Even before the Mercedes had come to a complete halt,
the gate started to swing open. Zen pressed his foot down
on the accelerator and the car, still in third gear, promptly
stalled. Managing to restart it at the third attempt, he
drove through the barrier, only to find his way blocked by
a second gate, identical to the first, which had meanwhile
closed behind him, trapping the car between the wire-
mesh fencing and a parallel inner perimeter of razor-
barbed wire. Remote-control cameras mounted on the
inner gateposts scanned the Mercedes with impersonal
curiosity. After about thirty seconds the inner gate swung
silently open, admitting Zen to the late Oscar Burolo's
private domain.
The narrow strip of tarmac wound lazily up the hillside.
After about fifty metres, Zen spotted the line of stumpy
metal posts planted at irregular intervals, depending on
the contours of the land, which marked the villa's third
and most sophisticated defence of all: a phase-seeking
microwave fence, invisible, intangible, impossible to cross
undetected. Within the triply-defended perimeter, the
whole property was protected by heat-seeking infra-red
detectors, a move-alarm TV system and microwave radar.
All the experts were agreed that security at the Villa Burolo
was, if anything, excessive. It just hadn't been sufficient.
Oscar's private road continued to climb steadily
upwards, smashing its way through ancient stretches of
dry-stone walling that were almost indistinguishable from
outbreaks of the rock that was never far from the surface,
loose boulders of all sizes lying scattered about like some
kind of crop, but in fact nothing grew there except a low
scrub of juniper, privet, laurel, heather, rosemary and
gorse, a prickly stubble as tough and enduring as the rocks
themselves.
Finally the land levelled out briefly, then fell away more
steeply to a hollow where the house appeared, sheltered
from the bitter northerly winds. From this angle, the Villa
Burolo seemed a completely modern creation. The south
and east sides of the original farmhouse were concealed by