"MacLean, Alistair - Airforce One is down (John Denis)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maclean Alistair)

to memory. And when he had dispatched these, he would reconstruct in perfect
detail the greatest achievements of his long career, and go on to plan those yet
to happen.
That they would happen, Smith never doubted. He had known with a cold certainty
on the day that the forces of the United Nations Anti-Crime Organisation
defeated his commando army on the Eiffel Tower, that no prison could hold him
beyond his calculated tolerance.
Now he had tolerated Fresnes Prison for long enough. Smith had rarely spoken,
still more rarely smiled, during his incarceration. But as he sat on his bunk
and squinted at the naked light-bulb which he had come to think of as a trusted
friend, the ghost of a grin touched his lips.
While his brain schemed at a feverish pitch, he dropped his eyes and
absent-mindedly sketched with a fingernail on the palm of his hand the ragged
outline of an aeroplane. And he whispered a name.
'Dunkels.'
Dunkels was Smith's creature, dragged from the gutters of Berlin. Smith had made
Dunkels rich, and fear of Smith kept the German loyal. The time had come for
Dunkels to repay his master, to be the catalyst of Smith's freedom, and of the
crime he would perpetrate and which would rock the Western world.
'Dunkels,' Smith breathed again, drawing comfort from the sound, for sounds were
precious to him. Dunkels would not let Mister Smith down. No one ever did that.
The Swissair DC-9 started its lazy descent into Zurich airport. The "No Smoking"
sign came on in the first-class compartment, and Siegfried Dunkels obediently
mashed his cigarette into pulp with elegantly powerful fingers.
He teased a flake of ash from the crease of his blue mohair trousers and glanced
out of the cabin window. White puffs of cumulus danced on the snow-topped Alpine
peaks, basking in their Christmas card complacency under an otherwise china-blue
sky. His thin lips twisted. Dunkels detested the smug Swiss, but envied and
feared them, too, for their effortless success and smooth financial brigandry.
He had been bested, cheated, by Swiss money-men in the past; it would not, he
vowed, happen again.
No Zurich gnome had ever beaten Mister Smith. Dunkels mused; and he was in
Switzerland on Mister Smith's business. Nothing must go wrong. On Dunkels' life,
nothing must go wrong.
A pert stewardess, confidently pretty, stopped by his seat and glanced
meaningfully at his lap through lowered lids. She was merely checking that his
seat-belt was fastened, yet she made it seem like an invitation.
'I trust,' Dunkels said in German,'that your Swiss doctors are more amenable
than your bankers.'
'I beg your pardon?' said the girl.
'You have it,' Dunkels rejoined, stretching his mouth into a smile.
Fawn-coloured sunlight flooded into the aircraft as the pilot turned on to his
final approach. A priest in the window seat struggled with the mini-blind, and
Dunkels reached across him to flick it expertly down and mask the sudden glare.
The priest bowed his thanks. Men of God, Dunkels thought, should not travel
first class. It did not demonstrate a proper humility, though he doubted whether
one such as his companion, clearly a bishop, would even bother to affect an
attitude of humility.
The tension of the landing mounted in the cabin, and was reflected by seasoned
travellers like Dunkels who steeled themselves for the touch-down. A sigh of