"David Drake - Birds Of Prey" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

The pettiness, the dishonesty ineradicable in a system built on secrecy, the filth he must know about the
Empire which it was his life to protect ... all of those factors had put the Illyrian on the edge of eruption.
The eight following years in the field were at least seven more than he could have survived in a
Headquarters billet. By now, however, Perennius had come to the gloomy conclusion that nothing would
save him from himself much longer.

There was a guard at the window on the peristyle court. He was there to make sure that no one slipped
in that way in a desperate attempt to get the Director's approval of a plan or document. Perennius
nodded to the soldier.

The man laid a brawny arm across the opening as the agent stepped toward it. "Keep clear, buddy," the
guard snapped. "Go see them if you need to get in." He nodded toward the ushers in the passage. They
were already hedged about by men who felt they had to talk to Navigatus.

"Calm down," Perennius said. He felt unusually calm himself, now that he had taken care of his business
with Zopyrion. It was a state almost like that following orgasm, the relaxation which follows the draining
of all the self's resources into a single triumphant moment. It took the edge off the sword of his temper,
though the iron baton which remained could be nasty enough in all truth. Perennius reached out to the
stone frame, holding his orders closed in his hand.

Navigatus reclined on the other side of the drawing room. He faced three-quarters away from the agent.
Unexpectedly, one of the other heads within was turned toward Perennius rather than toward the
Director. The man staring at the agent was six feet four inches tall, but much thinner-framed than the norm
of protein-fed barbarians of that height. He was starkly bald with only a hint of eyebrows like those
which regrow after facial burns. The eye contact surprised Perennius. Its intensity shocked him, stiffening
the agent with a gasp which convinced the guard to get involved again.

"Hey there," the soldier said. He set his left palm at the lower end of the agent's breastbone. "Get the hell
back, IтАФ"

Perennius gripped the other's wrist with his own left hand and squeezed. There was no emotion in his
response. That part of the agent's body was working on instinct. His right hand slapped the wooden
tablet three times against the sill. The sharp rattle of sound cut through the buzz of concurrent
conversations. It drew all eyes toward Perennius, as it had been intended to do. That was no longer an
intellectual act either. The agent's conscious mind was focused on the bald, spare man who looked at him
and looked away, just as Navigatus shouted, "Aulus! By Pollux, everybody make way for my friend
here!" The Director rose to his feet with a touch of awkwardness because in reclining he had slowed the
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circulation to his left leg.

Perennius laughed. "Say, I'll come through the window," he called, "if it won't earn me a foot of steel up
the ass." He released the guard, looking at the man with interest for the first time. Perennius' grip on the
soldier's wrist had paralyzed the man as small bones, already in contact, had grated closer. "Christ the
Savior, you bastard!" the soldier hissed as he massaged the injured limb with his good hand. Perennius
had been distracted or he would not have squeezed so hard. Still, no permanent harm done, the agent