"Steven Gould - Jumper 02 - Reflex" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gould Stephen Jay)

"You're kidding."

"I've been in Counter-intelligence my entire career." Becca was fiddling with the mouse again.
She enlarged another video window. It was the same scene, with the woman still waiting, but the
window title said Live Feed A. "She was a freelancerтАФa deniable asset. I worked with her once,
fifteen years ago. Her nameтАФher full nameтАФis Hyacinth Pope. Couldn't forget a name like that. She
had just started doing some contract work for the CIA then, but the wall came down, and most of her
career since has been in the private sector."

"What does that mean?"

"Corporate security and espionage."

"And kidnapping?"

Becca shrugged. "Or worse, but she's never been indicted, much less picked up. But this affair
may be compartmentalized."

"You guys don't like English very much, do you?"

Anders said, "Means that her group could be involved but that a different cell did the snatch."

On the screen Hyacinth Pope left the shelter of the overhang again. The camera tracked her to
the street where she got into a late model Dodge Caravan. The camera zoomed on the driver.

"That's the Monk," Millie said.

Anders leaned forward. "Ah. Padgett. Well, that tells us something."

"And that is?"
 "Padgett was with Executive Outcomes, but now he works for the BAd boys."

Becca whistled. "Bochstettler and Associates." To Millie, she added, "They're a 'consulting'
firm."

"What do they do?"

Becca said, "Well, ostensibly they're international commerce specialists, helping to develop and
maintain markets in foreign countries."

"And is that what they do?"

"It's exactly what they do," said Anders, with a grim face.

Millie must've looked puzzled, because Becca added, "They aren't too picky about how. Like
Executive Outcomes, before the South African government shut them down, we suspect the BAd
boys of toppling whole governments to arrange a more favorable business 'climate.' That's rare.
There's also a couple of questionable deaths. Usually, though, they tend to work through bribery and
blackmail."