"Alan Dean Foster - Empowered" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

Empowered
Alan Dean Foster

In comic books, superheroes are individuals with extraordinary skills or powers
who decide that their special status requires them to take actions outside the law.
Because they appear to be on the side of justice, serving the common good, we tend
to forget that they are at heart vigilantes.


They'd used too much explosive, but Kreiger didn't care. The stuff didn't do
anyone any good sitting in the basement of the safe house, and the one thing he sure
didn't want to do was use too little and risk blowing the whole job. So he'd told
Covey to use all he wanted, and the demo demon, had taken him at his word.
Besides, Kreiger liked big explosions.
Covey had certainly orchestrated one. As he and Kreiger and the rest of the gang
hunched down behind the truck, the force of the blast blew out the whole back of
the building. Even before the dust had begun to settle they were up and running,
masks and filters enabling them to breathe where others could not while
simultaneously disguising their identities. Across town Joaquin and Sievers were
faking their bank break in, drawing the majority of the police to their nonexistent
robbery. By now those two should be on their way to freedom via the carefully
plotted sewer escape route.
Meanwhile, except for its now numbed and bleeding private security force, the
special colored gem exhibition at Vaan Pelsen's was open to anyone who chose to
saunter in without buying a ticket. Needless to say, Kreiger and his team didn't have
any tickets. They never paid for admission.
Some gems lay scattered like electric gumdrops among the rubble, but Covey's
careful placement of the explosives the previous night had only destroyed the back
third of the store. Save for shattered glass and bodies, the front portion was largely
intact. One guard had somehow survived uninjured. He was quickly gunned down
by Pohatan, wielding his Uzi.
Not being averse to physical labor, Kreiger carried his own canvas sack. While
Pohatan and Covey kept watch over the street, where dazed pedestrians were
stumbling about looking for help, Kreiger and the rest of the team efficiently and
methodically helped themselves to the necklaces and rings, watches and bracelets,
settings and loose gems from the demolished cases. No alarms rang in their ears.
The explosion had destroyed them as well.
Anything worth obliterating, Kreiger mused as he worked, was worth obliterating
well.
 Having rehearsed the heist for months, they worked fast, intending to be long
gone before the first of the duped city police could make it back across town from
the faked bank robbery. Still Kreiger urged his people to move more quickly, and to
leave nothing behind. Ignoring the shocked and moaning injured among the store's
staff, they roughly shoved bleeding bodies aside in their quest for the last of the
stock and special display. In less than ten minutes they had reassembled and were
heading for the remnants of the back door.
Where a lanky green figure waited to confront them.
"Who the hell is that?" Pohatan gaped at the caped, emerald silhouette.
"Doesn't matter," snapped Kreiger. "Shoot him."
Reflexively, Pohatan brought the Uzi up and squeezed the trigger. The compact