"Keith Laumer - The Monitors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laumer Keith)

"So far, all they've got on me is resisting arrest, grand larceny, and assault and battery,"
Blondel called over the racket of the slip cover. "I believe I'll pass up the murder rap, if it's all the
same to you."
"Start facing realities!" Maxwell twisted the wheel hard, slithered fifty yards on two wheels,
straightened out with out a pause in the flow of his rhetoric. "Principles don't exist in a vacuum. If
you believe in a thing you either fight for it, or stand by and watch it die."
"I'm not sure killing people is exactly what my principles have in mind," Blondel protested.
"Scruples are fine - - if you live to use them! Survival comes first!"
 "Yeah - - but me minus my scruples is just a hundred and eighty pounds of unsatisfied appetites
for all the wrong things."
"Dead appetites -- unless you're willing to stand up for what you believe!"
"What I believe seems to vary. Right now I believe I won't shoot at those boys unless they
shoot first."
"Very well." Maxwell was watching the rear- view alertly. "Anything to be obliging ... " There
was a gentle curve coming up ahead, lined with amber- leaved trees silhouetted against a meadow
that sloped up to a stand of second- growth oak. Maxwell swung wide - - too wide. The right wheels
chopped underbrush. Blondel winced at the sound of untrimmed jimson weed whipping at the
paint job. Behind them the pursuit car was coming up fast, attempting to close. The curve
tightened; Maxwell fought the Mercedes, still watching the mirror. They were in a skid, howling
along at a forty- five degree angle to the direction of travel. Ahead, heavy sawhorses stood across
the road before a raw slash of dug- up pavement between big trees. Blondel braced himself for the
imminent crash --
Maxwell hit the gas pedal and the SL veered, leaped st raight for the dense undergrowth to the
left of the road. Blondel ducked as the car bounced hard, raking her bottom, and shot between
thick trunks, crashed through brush, bucking up a ragged rise to burst out in the clear on a
potholed and weed- grown single lane road. The screech of its brakes mingled with a similar howl
behind. Blondel winced at the smash that came then, followed by crashing sounds, metallic pings,
a crackling. He let out a long breath.
"You're a fast man back of a wheel, Maxwell." The dentist looked smug.
"Week-end rally driving has its uses," he said.
Blondel opened his door. "Let's go down and take a look."
"Never mind that." Maxwell backed the Mercedes, preparing to drive on. Blondel stepped out,
headed for the rough path the car had cut, without waiting to see whether the other followed.
He emerged on the road below, fifty feet from where the police car lay on its side beyond what
was left of the barricade, its front wheels angled hard left and spinning out of round. Dusky
orange flames were licking up around the twisted front bumper. Maxwell came up behind Blondel.
"Looks as though they missed the turn," he said in a tone as elaborately casual as a pool
hustler's. "Now let's get out of here -- "
"They're still in there!" Through the starred windshield one of the Monitors was groping at the
door above him. A quick ripple of fire ran back along the underside of the car, leaped high with a
whoof! when it hit puddled gas under the tank. Blondel sprinted for it, came around on the upwind
side, reached in over the dented top for the door handle. It was wedged tight. He scrambled up on
top of the wreck, tried again; it was jammed as solid as the main vault door at Fort Knox.
"Come on, you fool!" Maxwell yelled.
Blondel tried the rear door. The frame was twisted out of line. He stamped smashed glass from
the rear frame, reached down for a grip on a slack arm, hauled hard. The Monitor, he discovered,
was heavier than he looked - - a good two hundred pounds, as limp as a wet sail. The fire was
booming up behind Blondel now; paint crackled like hot fat.
" ... a car," Maxwell shouted. "Leave them and come on!"
Blondel got a grip under the Monitor's arms and heaved him out on the side. There was a snarl