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

"Attention, motorist!" Blondel's dash radio said in a kindly tenor. "Please pull to the right
shoulder and stop your machine."
Blondel hunched down over the wheel and floorboarded the Mustang. It jumped ahead, snarled
under the helicopter close enough to buck in the backwash from the rotors, roared ahead, wide
open. A moment later the copter reappeared off to the side at about fifty feet altitude.
"Please stop your machine," the radio said calmly. "Don't be alarmed. This is not an arrest,
merely a routine counselling action."
Blondel's weight was on the gas pedal. The needle wavered up past a hundred, to a hundred
and ten Detroit, which he estimated should mean a good eighty- five actual. The heli was still
loafing along beside him.
"Sir," the radio chided him gently, "please bring your auto to a halt at once. It will be to your
advantage to comply voluntarily with all instructions."
Blondel ignored the order, swung a wide curve in a squeal of tortured rubber - - and abruptly
the engine died. Blondel wrestled the suddenly stiff wheel, saw the copter swinging across directly
in front of him. A small puff of smoke jetted from an orifice on its underside, expanded quickly to
a pinkish cloud that enveloped the car. He sniffed once, caught the first hint of a crushed cherry
flavor, and slammed the air intakes shut. Then he aimed the slowing car straight down the center
of the road and flopped over on the wheel as realistically as comfort allowed. The car rolled on;
there were a number of preliminary thumps, then a hard dip and lurch, and the car slowed to a
stop. Blondel lay limp across the wheel, hearing the whap-whap of the copter growing louder,
feeling the car rock as the copter settled in beside it. The noise of the rotors braked down and
ceased. There were fault sounds of opening hatches, then the crunch of feet on hard ground.
Blondel opened one eye. The copter was parked twenty feet away, dead ahead. Two Monitors
were walking back toward him, tall and trim in yellow. He waited until they were opposite the
front bumper, then reached for the switch. The engine caught; he threw the transmission into low,
gunned straight ahead. The two men in yellow jumped aside. The wheels screamed on turf.
Blondel cut the wheel hard, felt the car skid sideways; it struck the stern of the heli a solid clip,
kept going in a hail of gold plastic chips. The Mustang banged down through the ditch, smashed
through rusted barbed wire, clipped off a 666 sign and was back on the pavement, laying rubber
all the way up to ninety- five. In the rear- view mirror Blondel saw the two Monitors standing in the
middle of the road, looking after him.
 CHAPTER TWO


Twenty minutes later, Blondel swung a curve that afforded him a view of gas stations and
motels and a clock tower in the distance -- and the big gold bulge of a blimp swelling up above a
row of red- and- green- shingled housetops. He took the first right, went four blocks to a wire fence
lining a field of dry cornstalks, turned left again -- and saw the police car blocking the road ahead.
Blondel swore silently and pulled off on the right shoulder. The patrol car was a regulation State
Patrol Chevrolet, but with a gold skunk- stripe painted down the back. Two yellow uniforms
emerged from it, came up, one on either side of the Mustang, looking like fraternity brothers of
the last pair he had seen at close range, complete with confident smiles. He cranked the window
down.
"Say, those are right pretty new uniforms you fellows are wearing." He took the offensive.
"How much did they cost the taxpayers?"
"Thank you for stopping, sir." The Monitor gave Blondel a two-fingered salute and a neat little
smile. Cool blue eyes flicked over the inside of the car. "The uniforms are provided by the
Authority. All taxes have been voided, retroactive to last midnight, as you perhaps - - "
"Yeah, that's a cute one." Blondel nodded as if in agreement with a jest. "That'll be the day. Ah
... was I doing something wrong, officer?"