"Ludlum, Robert - THE JANSON DIRECTIVE" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ludlum Robert)

of the Caliph's retinue presented him with a rifle: it was a purely ceremonial
act that he had devised, but ceremony was the handmaiden of power. Accordingly,
the Caliph would fire the first shot, using the very same rifle that a great
independence fighter had used, fifty years ago, to assassinate the Dutch
governor general. The rifle, a bolt-action Mauser M24, had been perfectly
reconditioned and carefully zeroed. Unwrapped from the silk that had enfolded
it, it gleamed like the sword of Saladin.
The Caliph found the number one guard in the weapon's scope and exhaled halfway
so that the crosshairs settled on the center of the man's beribboned chest. He
squeezed the trigger and intently watched the man's expressionsЧsuccessively
startled, anguished, dazed. On the man's upper right torso, a small oval of red
bloomed, like a boutonniere.
Now the other members of the Caliph's detail followed suit, loosing a brief
fusillade of well-aimed bullets. Marionettes released from their strings, the
seven officers collapsed, tumbled, sprawled.
Despite himself, the Caliph laughed. These deaths had no dignity; they were as
absurd as the tyranny they served. A tyranny that would now find itself on the
defensive.
By sunrise, any free-floating representatives of the Anuran government that
remained in the province would be well advised to shred their uniforms or else
face dismemberment by hostile mobs.
Kenna would no longer be part of the illegitimate Republic of Anura. Kenna would
belong to him.
It had begun.
The Caliph felt a surge of righteousness, and the clear piercing truth filled
him like a light. The only solution to violence was more violence.
Many would die in the next several minutes, and they would be the fortunate
ones. But there was one person in the Stone Palace who would not be killedЧnot
yet. He was a special man, a man who had come to the island in an attempt to
broker a peace. He was a powerful man, revered by millions, but an agent of
neocolonialism nevertheless. So he had to be treated with care. This oneЧthe
great man, the "peacemaker," the man of all peoples, as the Western media
insistedЧwould not be a casualty of a military skirmish. He would not be shot.
For him, the proper niceties would be observed.
And then he would be beheaded as the criminal he was.
The revolution would be nourished on his blood!
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
The worldwide headquarters of the Harnett Corporation occupied the top two
floors of a sleek black-glass tower on Dearborn Street, in Chicago's Loop.
Harnett was an international construction firm, but not the kind that put up
skyscrapers in American metropolises. Most of its projects were outside the
United States; along with larger corporations such as Bechtel, Vivendi, and Suez
Lyonnaise des Eaux, it contracted for projects like dams, wastewater treatment
plants, and gas turbine power stationsЧunglamorous but necessary infrastructure.
Such projects posed civil-engineering challenges rather than aesthetic ones, but
they also required an ability to work the ever shifting zone between public and
private sectors. Third World countries, pressured by the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund to sell off publicly owned assets, routinely sought
bidders for telephone systems, water and power utilities, railways, and mines.