"Evans,.Linda.-.Sleipnir" - читать интересную книгу автора (Evans Linda)

Those tunnels couldn't be gone. They couldn't. But they were.
Suddenly I wondered what else might disappearЧ

Goddamned one-eyed son-of-a-bitch!

I broke and ran like hell for my pack, leaping the chimney like a
running longjumper. My gear was still piled where I'd left it,
complete with food, canteens, carbideЧand the Armalite AR-180
assault rifle strapped across it. . . .

I slid down against the wall, barely feeling the needle-sharp
projections that scraped my back, and sat swearing at the wall
opposite me. Odin was playing games again.

I scrubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and tugged on my
hair for a moment, and wondered with a nagging sense of futility
what would have happened if I hadn't kept my half of that
misbegotten bargain with Odin? Surely it couldn't have been much
worse than what had happened. I laughed aloud, and shuddered at
the same time.

It was far too late, of course, but I couldn't help wishing I'd kept the
knife and said the hell with Odin and every other god ever invented.
What a waste of a perfectly good blade . . . and a pile of money,
not to mention my time, and Gary's.

I even found myself wishing for Frau Brunner's company. Odin
himself would've thought twice about crossing her.



Frau BrunnerЧa shrewd old woman who had survived everything
from the Allied Blitz to navigating landmines at the East German
borderЧwas known throughout town as a shark.

Her standard sales-floor expression was a scowl that routinely
cowed GIs, tourists, and rabid dogs. By the time I'd bargained my
way to a final sale on the Mauser K-98-k bayonet I'd chosen, I was
sweating into my uniform, and was convinced that Frau Brunner
was a throwback to the original Viking traders she was descended
from. She might have been closer to eighty than seventy, and was
homely as a bald crowЧbut the lady was sharp.

Which made the compliment Gary paid me when we walked out
the door even sweeter.

"Pretty good, RB." He grinned. "Most of the officers on base warn
guys away from her; but you got a good price on that. Nice blade,
too." Then his grin turned nasty. "Too bad you can't bargain like