"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 04 - Slave of Sarma" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

"Mr. Blade, please. Richard Blade. Thisishis cottage?"
"Yes. Yes, it is. But Richard isn't here just now, I'm afraid. He is down on the beach."
J glanced out his single window at the thickening fog competing with oncoming night,
"The beach, my dear?"
A sniff. Then a moist laugh. "Walking, you know. Not swimming or anything silly like that."
J frowned at the phone. The caution of years could not be shaken off. And yet it was probably
nothingтАФjust another quarrel with another of Blade's girls. He had had a lot of them lately. Trying to find
another Zoe.
J said: "Who are you, young lady?"
"Mary. Mary Hetherton. IтАФI'm a friend of Richard's." Silence. Then what J could only identify as a
sob.
"I really must speak with him, Miss Hetherton. I wonder if you would be so kindтАФ?"
"Of course. Hold on. He can't be very far."
But it was five minutesтАФJ watched the little clock on his deskтАФbefore Blade came on the line.
"Hallo?"
"Richard? This is J, dear boy. How are you?"
"I'm fine, sir." Blade sounded puzzled. "Why, sir? Shouldn't I be?"
J nodded and smiled at his end of the line. No mistaking that voice, that cheerful, well-spoken, light
baritone. This was the man who had worked for him, for MI6 before it had become MI6A, ever since J
had, in person, recruited him at Oxford.
Wasn't it?
"Just being conversational," J said with a laugh. "And, of course, a bit of business. A certain boffin
wants to see you right away, Richard."
Unthinkable now to waste two precious days. It might already be too late. There was a tiny snapping
sound. J stared down at his spare pipe, the stem broken in half in his palm. You, he told himself, had
bloody well pull yourself together and bloody fast, too.
Blade said: "Lord L, eh? I didn't think it was quite ready yet, sir. Not that I mind coming up at once,
but the last time I saw you I got the impression thatтАФ"
J leaped at it. "Oh, thatтАФer, yes. WhendidI see you last, Richard? My memory is getting fuzzy these
days."
Silence. The wire hummed in desolation. J thought he heard gulls screaming in the background. He
guessed at the puzzlement on Blade's face. The lad knew there was nothing wrong with his, J's, memory.
Blade did sound puzzled. Cautious. Remote now. J smiled. Blade was a professional like himself.
"Day before yesterday, sir. In your office."
"Right," said J. "That will be all, Richard. Get up here at once, as soon as you hang up. Go to Lord
L's place. You know it?"
But now Blade wasn't giving anything away. All he said was, "I know it, sir. At once. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, Richard."
J hung up and sat staring down at the broken pipe. Were his nerves really all that strung up? He
tossed the bits of pipe into a wastebasket and reached for another phone. No time to waste now.
As he worked he stared occasionally out the window. Here, in the city, just off Threadneedle Street,
it was quiet. Raining again, adding to the murk. There was no shimmer of neon, no street noise. The
brokers and the merchants had gone for the day.
J locked his door, a thing he had not done in years. Before he went back to his desk he went again to
peer out the window. Out there somewhere, perhaps not in London, or even in England, but somewhere,
was another Richard Blade. A double, twin,doppelganger, call him what you would. He was there. As
perfect a replica of the real Blade as years of training could make him.
J went to his files and unlocked them. He found a manila folder and scanned it rapidly. The Russian
version of Blade had been in the works for some ten years. They had never used him.
Why now?