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

the interior, was a base. Had it been set up some time ago just for me? Or was it
a multipurpose base? It seemed more probable that it was multipurpose.
Otherwise, why had not all its personnel and machines been sent down here to
terminate me?

I went around the side of the tent to the opening. Two shots sent the two officers
spinning backward and onto the ground. The operator had a .45 automatic in a
holster. But he made no motion toward it. He placed his palms flat against the
table and stared at me with his mouth open. His huge round eyes, pale skin,
shock of wheat-coloured hair, sharp beaky nose, and the ear-phones made him
look like a very frightened owl.

'Tell them to cancel the operation,' I said. 'Tell them I've been killed.'

He hesitated, and I stepped closer to him. The muzzle of the rifle was only a few
niches from his temple. He gulped and obeyed me.

After he had finished, he stared at me as if he expected me to blow his head off.
He had a right to expect it, and I had a right to do it, though I have never
bothered about rights as defined by human beings unless they happened to
coincide with my beliefs. He was a member of an organisation devoted to killing
me; he knew it and had taken part in it; he deserved to die.
My own philosophy is simple and practical and not at all based on the idea that
life is sacred. If a man is out to kill you, you kill him first. This has nothing to do
with the rules of warfare as conducted by nations. When I was a member of the
British forces in World War II, I observed the Geneva rules. That is, I did except
in two cases, where I had orders from the Nine, and their orders superseded
anybody's. In return for giving me a very extended youth, they demanded a high
price sometimes. But I had had no qualms about killing the men the Nine wanted
out of the way, especially since they were the enemy. If I were to tell you that
several of them were the highest and most famous of our enemy, you might find
it difficult to believe. Especially since the world believes that they committed
suicide to keep from falling into the hands of the Russians.

'Do what I say, and quickly, and I'll spare you,' I said. 'And if you know anything
about me, you know I don't go back on my word.'

He gulped and nodded. 'Can you get Dakar?' I said.

He could do so, and he did at once, asking for Brass Bwana. He was operating
illegally, of course, and what the authorities at Dakar thought, I did not know or
care. The station was at the time out in the desert about thirty miles from Dakar,
had been operating on a mobile basis for twenty-six years, and so far the police
had not been able to come near it. I had used it when I worked for the Nine but
had never told anyone else in the organisation about it. Its operators were
criminals, loyal to me, because I had rewarded them well. Now they were in
contact with the organisation that Doc Caliban had used when he was a disciple
of the Nine. This station was somewhere in the Vosges and tied in with another
in the Black Forest area of Germany.