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

added, half to himself, 'How unpleasant it will be for McCafferty to discover
that he has suddenly become two people.'
Smith's computer "mincer", located thirty miles north of the Brazilian city of
Sao Paolo, was extraordinarily swift and adept. It placed its imprimatur on
Jagger's credentials while Dunkels was still waiting for his coffee to arrive. A
courteous waiter handed him the telex, and Dunkels himself took the good news to
Jagger, who was billeted in a room at the end of a wing that was private even by
the reclusive character of the Edelweiss Clinic.
He introduced himself and told Jagger, 'You'll be seeing a lot of me from now
on.' The ringer stood up and clasped Dunkels' hand. He grinned crookedly and
said, 'Cody Jagger - and this is probably the last you'll ever see of me as I
look now.'
Four hours later, Dunkels left the clinic in the same Mercedes that had brought
him there. His close interrogation of Jagger had endorsed the computer's
verdict: that Cody Jagger was indeed Cody Jagger. Dunkels was also satisfied, by
his own and Smith's high standards, that Jagger was psychologically as well as
physiologically adjusted to becoming one Joseph Eamonn Pearse McCafferty,
Colonel USAF, presently Head of Security Operations, Air Force One, and seconded
to the 89th Military Airlift Wing at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, USA.
The Alpine peaks were almost purple in the waning light when Stein knocked at
Jagger's door, and entered without an invitation. The ringer, who was standing
before a back-lit shaving mirror saying goodbye to his face, remarked tersely.
'He's hooked.'
'Excellent,' Stein beamed. 'So Smith will be hooked too. Moscow should be very,
very pleased.'
'So they ought to be,' Jagger retorted. 'This thing could be bigger than either
we or they thought.' He lapsed into silence, then added, 'Are you sure Smith
will buy it?'
'Tut, tut, tut,' Stein said, waving an admonitory finger at him, 'Mister Smith
if you don't mind. That, Jagger, is your first lesson.'
Smith listened to the days going by. Dunkels' last message had been affirmative.
The ringer was perfect. The caper was on. His freedom lay barely a week away;
then the world of sound, sight and scent would assume its normal proportions.
But strangely, that mattered less and less to Smith as the elongated hours
passed. What was important was the crime he had planned to celebrate his return
to life - the big one. which would destroy the credibility of UNACO and its
commander, Malcolm Philpott. Smith deeply hated the man who had condemned him to
the scarcely endurable catalepsy of imprisonment but this time he would triumph
and UNACO would fall.
Dunkels would not let him down. Nor would Jagger; nor would Stein. Failure, as
always with Mister Smith, was unthinkable. He had felt President Warren G.
Wheeler squirming in his hands once before; and he would do so again.
Smith's mind conjured up anew the vision of the converted Boeing 707 that was,
to Warren G. Wheeler, Air Force One. 'Oh dear,' he murmured, 'has the nasty man
taken your toy away?'
And for the first time in three years, four months and eighteen days, genuine,
unforced laughter filled the lonely prison cell, so near to his beloved Paris
that Smith could almost smell the drains.
CHAPTER TWO
Over the next four days, Cody Jagger survived the mental and physical agony of