"Philip Jose Farmer - The Empire of the Nine omnibus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

Murtagh had not said a word about himself to me or to anyone that I knew. But
the Countess Clara Aekjaer, the beautiful Danish Valkyrie who was my
companion during the ceremonies over the years, knew much about him. She
told me everything she knew. Perhaps she had been told to do so by the Nine,
who were grooming me, without my knowing it, to become one of them if one
died.

I could have gotten him with a single shot from my FN, but he might be a link to
the next one higher up in the chain. So I set the rifle for automatic and sprayed
about twelve rounds into the group. Five fell; the others dived into the bush. I
dropped the rifle and slid down the tree before they could get reorganised and
blast me from the treetops. I went through the bush southward. It did not seem
likely that the base for the group would be in the mangrove swamp to the north.

By then the men were firing at the tree I had left. I continued to travel south while
the sound of the weapons grew fainter. Then I heard a voice ahead and, a few
minutes later, I peered through a bush at a large clearing. It may have been small
a few days before, but axes and powersaws had cut trees and bushes down, and
a jeep with a winch had dragged off the fallen plants. There were two large
helicopters, Bristol 192's, at one end and six tents near my end. Inside the largest
tent was radio equipment on a table; three men were by the equipment. An
antenna reached high above the tent.

I scouted around the entire perimeter of the camp and found no hidden guards. I
also was alert for booby traps and mines. Murtagh impressed me as the type of
man who would think of such devices and smile while he was setting them. I
appreciate that, since I also smile when engaged in similar activities.

There was a good chance that Murtagh would send men packing back to the
camp. He would figure that I would know a camp had to be close and would go
look-ing for it. He had not set guards around it because he had not really
expected that I would survive the attack by the jet. I had to work fast.

Even though much of the vegetation had been dragged away, there were still
clumps of uprooted bushes and the stumps of trees in the clearing. I ran bent
over across the clearing, approaching the big tent from its closed rear. There I
listened to the operator relay orders from his superior officer. Someone in the
group that had tried to ambush me had reported via wireless that I had escaped.
So the big short-wave set was transmitting a request for two jets and two more
helicopters. These would carry napalm bombs and would bring in more men and
dogs.

The code name used for me was Tree Lord, which I thought both appropriate and
amusing.

I was puzzled about where the jets and copters could be based. It did not seem
likely that they would be at Port-Gentil. This was approximately one hundred and
twenty-six miles to the north-east. The men in the tent talked as if they expected
the craft in about ten minutes. Somewhere, probably in a man-made clearing in