"Dean Ing - Soft Targets" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ing Dean)

He measured a length of cord with great care, tying a loop in its exact center and securing the
over the mousetrap's trig-ger. Each end of the cord was then loop-knotted to an extremity of
coat hanger. The cord was very slightly slack. He turned the door knob sev-eral times. Either
the knob turned, the lengthened arm of the coat hanger would assure triggering, completed cir
squib ignitionтАФand a few more gray hairs for the apartment manager.
At last he was ready, going through his prep-arations again, checking every connection. It
rush hour by now on a Friday afternoon, and he would be all the more anonymous. He took up
attach├й case, studied the entry rig again, and then plugged the extension cord into the wall.
moment always set him on edge: you never knew.
Then he slid one loop knot loose and opened the door, peering casually into the empty hall be
he swiftly secured the loop again and tightened it. He set the lock on the inside, picked up
attach├й case, and stepped into the hall, pulling the door closed. He did not test the knob. If the
was faulty the knob would turn, and if the knob turned much he would get the gray hairs. He st
from the building and down the street to another parking complex where an at-tendant brought al
meters of his dun-brown Pontiac Parisienne, the Canadian version of a Catalina. Moments late
turned north on Route Eleven toward Lake Simcoe, chafing at the need to drive around Lake H
en route to Winnipeg. But, "To regain the initiative we must ignore the main body of the enemy
concen-trate far off," he quoted silently. El Aurans had known.
He held the big Pontiac at the legal maximum, unmoved by the occasional view of sunset
inlets from Georgian Bay. At Parry Sound he fed seventeen imperial gallons to his brute, nag
himself into checking the equipment in its trunk, and made a toll call to one of his two Toro
numbers. His own voice said, "Mr. Trnka regrets that he is unable to take your call at the mom
At the tone, please leave your name and number. " The response tape was blank. More important
communication center was still functioning, which meant that no one had traced him to
apartment. Yet.
He drove nearly to Marathon before he entered a rest stop, evacuated himself, and fluffed ou
slender goosedown mummy bag. It was not op-timal, but neither was confrontation in a mote
some red-suited lackey of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He slept.
On Saturday he passed Winnipeg ahead of schedule, crossed Manitoba, stopped well into
Saskatchewan. Hunger, as he knew, kept a healthy animal poised for the huntтАФwhichever en
the hunt it was on. He nibbled at fruit, then, in the mornings and feasted at the end of each d
travel.
Sunday he was immersed in listening to a mysterious noise in the Parisienne's luxurious vee-e
and nearly failed to hear a news item on the radio. Government sources had disarmed two cha
of high explosive hidden in the structure of the Cap Rouge Bridge north of Quebec City.
massive charges would have rendered the bridge useless for weeks. On un-disclosed evidence,
metropolitan police and the RCMP sought one Jean Bonin, known as a violent Quebecois separa
He snorted to himself, certain that the evi-dence was as simple as fingerprint impressions in
plastique. Bonin was an excellent pro-vider, but an idiot with explosives. He would wind u
Archambault Penitentiary yet. The Cap Rouge fiasco, at least, explained why Bonin had refused
even a kilo of plastique. And now it belonged to the government! C'est la guerre; another toll
assured him that in To-ronto, Mr. Trnka still regretted .. .
The terrain was a distinct drawback as the Parisienne labored into the Canadian Rockies
malaise now more pronounced. He skirted Banff, stopped near Lake Louise, and nestled into
mummy bag at midnight. The cold was one thing he had never mastered, and anger at this failu
himself kept him awake too long.
Monday he flogged the car through Kamloops and past Ashcroft, unwilling to admit that the
Parisienne was no vehicle for mountain driving. He found a turnoff with a downhill slope lea
to the highway, nearly backing the big machine over a precipice. He was grimy, he was hungry
was in no mood to appreciate the cataclysmic rush of the Thompson River that boiled southw