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

below him in the moonlight.
He was in the same mood at dawn on Tuesday and feared for long minutes that, even
glid-ing down onto the highway and building up to cruising speed, the Parisienne might not sta
guzzled fuel at an infuriating rate but, once past Chilliwack, he knew he would make it to the f
south of Vancouver.
Thirty-three hundred kilometers to the east in the offices of Salon du Nord, Pelletier gnaw
cuticle and waited for a call which, he was in-creasingly sure, would not come. If Trnka was bu
the remaining microprocessors, he was infernally slow about it. If Trnka was buying time, Pell
himself was dilatory. He thought about the anonymous cash again. He would wait one more day.

TUESDAY, 23 SEPTEMBER, 1980:

During the long ferry ride across the Strait of Georgia to Sidney on Vancouver Island, the
man poked at the vast pig-iron innards of the Parisienne as long as light permitted. Unknow-ingl
moved two frayed plug leads apart and, at Sidney, was intensely relieved to hear the engine spl
to something like a willingness to move the two thousand-kilo machine. He drove to Victoria, fo
the upper harbor, and left the car near the small boat flotilla off Wharf Street. It might never
again, but this possi-bility did not disturb him.
Wednesday morning he contacted Bonin's man, Charles Graham, identifying himself as Dom
Baztan. The Basques, too, had a separatist movement and unusual accents.
He stood some distance from the boathouse at first, pleased that the long individual boatho
was in good repair. The man who unlocked the door was a tall windburned specimen dresse
ducking to his shoes. The beret said he was Graham. The accent suggested he was a New Je
transplant. They met inside the boathouse and traded ritual handclasps, Graham standing so nea
seemed to loom.
"Hope you didn't want me to pick up your man today, Baztan," the larger man said. "I've go
put her in tune first." He indicated a powerboat that lurked beyond.
Forgetting himself, 'Baztan' cursed in Arabic. The boat was fifteen meters long, eel-slender
lines promising great speed and minimal radar echo. Though no sailor he knew instantly that s
rational alternative must be found. "It looks very fast," he said.
"Runs like a striped-assed ape," Graham chuckled, motioning `Baztan' alongside the craft. "T
turbocharged chevy four-fifty--fours, sixteen hundred shaft horses between 'em. A Cigarette
cross Juan De Fuca Strait in fifteen minutes with weather like this."
"Cigarette?"
"That's what they call this breed. Designed for ocean racing; the only thing that'll catch it
bullet. They're sots for fuel, though. That's part of the three thousand you're paying."
The little man studied the boat, realizing that it would have to reach one hundred forty kilom
per hour to cross the treacherous ocean strait as Graham boasted. Anyone lying under its hull w
be pounded to marmalade at that speed. No, the Cigarette would not do. Well enough for Bon
uses, perhaps. He cleared his throat, choosing to sound vulnerable." Is it a smooth crossing?
man is very old, very frail."
Graham thought about it. "Maybe I could strap him in foam cushions, when we clear
Angeles on the way back." He jerked a thumb at the sleek craft. "This thing is the Can-Am ca
powerboats, Baztan, at eighty knots she'll rearrange his guts. There's nothing I can do about th
he smiled.
"His heart is very bad," was the response.
"Then he'd need a transplant in ten seconds. Do you care?"
The little man brightened. Graham had given him another idea in his cover story. "After I c
over tonight and bring him to meet you at Port Angeles tomorrow, my responsibility is dis-char
If he arrives with you here in Victoria, well and good. If he should happen to fall overboard and