"Dean Ing - Wild Country" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ing Dean)

After he disconnected the rear steering yoke, Quantrill stepped into the front cowl, then pulled a cold
bulb of Pearl beer from the right-hand cargo pannier. With his other hand he toggled his VHP set. A
moment later, he had Chief Deputy Stearns on-line.

The complaints began almost immediately. "Nope, I never got a chance to read him his rights," Quantrill
replied. "He went for a Chinese sidearm; I'm bringing it as evidence."
He waited, pressing the earpiece with two fingers, meanwhile scanning the innocent horizon. Then, "It
was Rawson's choice, not mine." Pause. "Sure. If my belt video was working, you'll see me with the chit
in one hand and a handful of air in the other while he was drawing on me. I won't kill a man unless he
forces me to." Pause; a flare of nostrils below his broken nose. "Well, I don't anymore, sir. You can tell
Marshal Teague our Justice Department is still just. Anyway, you've got two more of Sorel's men for a
nice showy trial. You'd never have gotten anything from Mike Rawson. Read his file."

This time Quantrill waited longer. He was shaking his head in disgust when he replied. "It's not my fault if
they got sprung so fast. Did anybody plant a tracer bug on either of 'em?" Another pause. "I'm sorrier
than you are, mister; Espinel was a friend of mine. Sometimes I think Teague is sorrier to see a fugitive
come in horizontal than he is when one of us gets it. No, cancel that. I'm just hot and tired and pissed
offтАФsir."

As always, the "sir" sounded insincere. Marvin Stearns, grown sleek with inaction, could list a dozen men
he would prefer over Quantrill. Ted Quantrill could list several friends who'd become casualties through
the inaction of sleek men.

Kent Ethridge, for example. Some men put the entire blame for that on Ethridge himself. Quantrill's
reaction had been a deepening fury against those who had made Ethridge's death possible. Now he took
a final pause and a gulp of Pearl before: "I'm near Dabney, just north of Zavala County. You want
Rawson in SanTone Ringcity, or do I freight him back to you in Junction? Yeah, he's in a bodybag, he'll
keep 'til tomorrow. Right. See you in Junction bright and early. A-a-and out," he drawled, putting away
the tiny headset with relief.

Ted Quantrill hadn't had a mastoid-implant radio in his noggin for four years, but he still hated any comm
set that reminded him of a mastoid "critic," however faintly. An explosive critic had executed his lover,
Marbrye Sanger, on command of the murderous Young administration. The postwar excesses of
Young's people had driven Quantrill to rebellion; nearly to madness as well. They drove so many good
people to the rebel ranks that the elections of 2004 had cut across the lines of Mormonism and
federalism. Now it was President Ora McCarty whose cabinet struggled to reconstruct America. As long
as the ex-rebel boss Jim Street was attorney general, there would be jobs for men like Quantrill.

Like the American nation itself, old Jim Street had suffered systemic shock during the Sinolnd War. The
grizzled, crippled old Texan rode herd on the Justice Department, including both the FBI and the Border
Authority. Street had to let other folks wrangle over the new Capitol site, now abuilding in the District of
Columbia, Missouri. He worried about foreign entanglements when they crossed American bordersтАФfor
example, when the Ellfive colonies of New Israel helped Turkish drug merchants open conduits through
Wild Country.

Street knew in his chalky bones that America could not survive another reign of unjust rule, of
government by terror. As long as he could climb into a wheelchair, he would prowl the corridors of law
and order. If Wild Country and Oregon

Territory were to be parts of the nation again, they must get fair-handed justice. With deputies like Ted