"The World Jones Made" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Phillip K)

Ahead of him was a cleared spot, a dead center in the maelstrom of frenzied shapes. Jones stood inert; behind his glasses, his eyes darted frantically. Around him had grouped a knot of organization fighters, a last-ditch defense.

Kneeling, Pratt managed to get his rifle up. Flickering mists danced in front of him; he was suspended in a silent, unmoving interval. Automatically, his fingers squeezed the trigger; there was no noise, only a faint shudder of the gun stock.

He saw Jones stumble, clutch at his belly, and then pitch over on his back. He had only wounded him--got him in the gut, not the head. Cursing, weeping, Pratt fumbled with the bolt. He had failed; he had not killed him.

While he was trying to fire again, a vast gray shape loomed up, drew back its foot, and kicked the gun from his hands. Two more shapes appeared; he experienced a blossoming second of agony, and then it was over. His last instant of life had passed. Between the three of them, the gray toughs had decapitated him.


Sitting on the pavement, spitting blood, Jones sat waiting for the police medical teams to reach him. From where he squatted, he could see the remains of the assassin. Dimly, through a haze, he watched the infuriated gray figures destroy what was left.

It was over. Between his clenched fingers, the living warmth of his blood oozed. He had been wounded; but he was still alive. In his agony there was already the roaring joy of victory.

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN


PEARSON WAS sitting at his desk when the first reports came in. He listened idly; they seemed to come from a long way off, remote and theoretical, without immediate importance. He gave his acknowledgment and turned away from the relay.

After awhile it occurred to him that he had failed. Pratt was dead, and Jones lay groaning in a police hospital. Jones was still alive. Well, that was it.

Getting to his feet, he walked over to the window. Hands in his pockets, he stood gazing out at the dark, nocturnal city. Very little stirred. In the next day or so, police units would round up Jones' followers in this area. There was no hurry; it could wait. In fact, it could wait forever.

But he had to go through with it. All the way to the bitter end, He had started it; he had to finish it. He did not intend to back out now, simply because there was no hope.

He thought briefly of trying to murder Jones in the hospital, as he lay helpless. No, he had already made his quixotic gesture. He had already proven what he set out to prove, what he had to know.

Jones could not be killed. It was futile. Fedgov was through; he might as well throw in the sponge.

As a matter of fact, he waited two weeks. He waited until the actual figures on the plebiscite began to trickle in. He even procrastinated until the building reeked with the acrid fumes of burning paper: the official documents of Security going up in smoke. When the Supreme Council resigned, Pearson was still standing mutely in his Detroit office, head sunk down on his chest, hands in his pockets.

A few hours before the pale, weak figure of Jones rose from the hospital bed, entered an official car and headed toward Detroit, Pearson put in a call to Cussick.

"I'll come over there," Pearson told him. "I'll talk to you at your apartment; we're blowing up this building. We don't want to leave anything."

The first thing he noticed as he entered Cussick's apartment was the general untidiness. He didn't remember it that way. For a moment he stood in the doorway, baffled and disturbed.

"That's right," he said finally. "Your wife's gone. You're here all alone."

Cussick closed the hall door. "Can I pour you a drink?"

"You bet your life," Pearson said gratefully. "A water high."

"I've got a fifth of good Scotch," Cussick said. He fixed the drinks, and the two of them sat down.

"We're through," Pearson said.