"William W Johnstone - Ashes 32 - Destiny in the Ashes (txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Johnstone William W)

top, his hands locked in a death grip around the boy's throat. Sweating
with rage and exertion, his face a mask of hate, the soldier squeezed
harder and harder until the young man's face began to turn a shade of
blue so dark it was almost black.

In a panicked frenzy Farrar began to paw through the trash looking for
anything he could use as a weapon. His hands

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locked on the neck of a discarded wine bottle. He scrambled to his feet
and rushed toward the pair on the ground. Putting all of his weight
behind the blow, he struck the soldier in the forehead, shattering the
bottle and knocking the man to the ground. He stood over the fallen
soldier and overcome with hatred, stuck the jagged neck of the bottle
into his throat. With a squeal like a gut-shot pig, the young man
grabbed his neck and rolled on the ground, crimson blood pumping from
between his fingers, his eyes bright with terror and pain.

Farrar pulled the young boy to his feet by the front of his shirt, then
led his new friend through the alleyways as if the devil himself were
after them. Later, after circling for hours to lose any possible tails,
the boys approached Farrar's house.

The boy, who had introduced himself as Mustafa Kareem, grabbed Farrar
and pulled him back into the alley just as he was about to run across
the street to his house.

"Look, Abdul, the U.N. security forces!" said Kareem, pointing to the
black four-door sedan pulling up in front of Farrar's house. There was
no doubt that the two men in Western style suits were indeed members of
the dreaded secret police of the U.N. No one else so dressed would have
business with Farrar's father, who insisted that anyone entering his
house dress in the customary Arab fashion.

As one of the richest families in Iraq due to their extensive oil
holdings, Farrar's family could do just about anything they wanted.

"Do you think the soldiers recognized you?" Kareem asked Farrar.

Farrar shrugged his small shoulders. "I do not know," he said, "but if
they think my father will care that I killed a U.N. scum soldier, they
are very much mistaken."

"Do you think he will stand up to the U.N. security forces?" Kareem
asked, his face a mask of worry.

Farrar was confident. "My father is not afraid of anything,

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