"Ludlum, Robert - Matarese Dynasty 01 - The Matarese Circle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ludlum Robert)

once sympathetic and commanding. "Getting upset won't solve anything; it
won't get us where we're going any faster."
"You're right, General," answered the driver with a respect be did not
feel. Normally, the respect was there, but not tonight, not on this
particular trip. The general's self-indulgence aside, he had one hell of a
nerve requesting his aide to be available for duty on Christmas Eve. For
driving a rented, civilian car to New York so the general could play games.
The major could think of a dozen acceptable reasons for being on duty
tonight, but this was not one of them.
A whorehouse. Stripped of its verbal frills, that's what it was. The
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was going to a whorehouse on
Christmas Eve! And because games were played, the general's most
confidential aide bad to be there to pick up the mess when the games were
over. Pick it up, put it together, nurse it through the next morning at
some obscure motel, and make godamn sure no one found out what the games
were or who the mess was. And by noon tomorrow, the Chairman would resume
his ramrod bearing, issue his orders, and the evening and the mess would be
forgotten.
The major had made these trips many times during the past three years-since
the day after the general had assumed his awesome position-but the trips
always followed periods of intense activity at the Pentagon, or moments of
national crisis, when the general had shown his professional mettle. But
never on such a night as this.
THE MATARESE CIRCLE 5

Never on Christmas Eve, for Christ's sake! If the general Were anyone but
Anthony Blackburn, the major might have objected on the grounds that even
a subordinate officer's family had certain holiday priorities.
But the major would never offer the slightest objection about anything
where the general was concerned. "Mad Anthony" Blackburn had carried a
broken young lieutenant out of a North Vietnamese prison camp, away from
torture and starvation, and brought him through the jungles back to
American lines. That was years ago; the lieutenant was a major now, the
senior aide to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Military men often spoke bromidically of certain officers they'd follow
to bell and back. Well, the major had been to bell with Mad Anthony
Blackburn and he'd return to hell in a shot with a snap of the general's
fingers.
They reached Park Avenue and turned north. The traffic was less snarled
than on the crosstown route, as befitted the better section of the city.
Fifteen more blocks to go; the brownstone was on Seventy-first Street
between Park and Madison.
The senior aide to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would park
the Cadillac in a prearranged space in front of the building and watch
the general get out of the car and walk up the steps to the bolted
entrance door. He would not say anything, but a feeling of sadness would
sweep over the major as he waited.
Until a slender woman-dressed in a dark silk gown with a diamond choker
at her throat-reopened the door in three and a half or four hours and
flicked the front lights. It would be the major's signal to come up and